There's always a method to the madness with Old Dominion wrestling coach Steve Martin. Down season? Necessary. Insanely young team? Build for the future. Heavy road schedule? Preparation for nationals.

The Monarchs will spend a rare week competing at home, starting with Wednesday's match against Bucknell at the Ted (7:30 p.m.) and their annual appearance at the Virginia Duals this weekend at the Hampton Coliseum.

"Traveling makes you tougher for the end of the year, but it doesn't always give you the best circumstances to win matches," Martin said. "I think if we had wrestled all of our matches at the Ted, there's no question in my mind we'd be undefeated."

Instead, the Monarchs are 4-4 and unranked. Bucknell is just their second home dual meet and one of only four home duals all season. It's a scheduling quirk — Martin said he's owed eight return meets — with a silver lining.

"If you can deal with the chaos on the road," Martin said, "the chaos when sometimes things don't go your way or things are unfair, you're going to be ready at the end of the year. Because things don't always go your way and things aren't always done fairly. But it's good to prepare you for the end of the year and that's the focus with this group."

Stress training and preparation are paramount for a team with only two seniors and one junior. And one of the seniors, 174-pounder Te Edwards from Virginia Beach, is a newcomer after transferring from Arizona State for his final year.

"We have a really good team," Edwards said. "Guys are really young and a lot of them are underrated. People don't know how good they actually are and how hard they work. We've had some ups and downs throughout the year, but we have moments and matches where guys step up and show how good they can be. That day we get everybody wrestling at their best, we'll knock off top-10, top-five teams."

Eight of the Monarchs' usual 10 in the lineup are freshmen, redshirt freshmen or sophomores. Freshmen Rob Deutsch (125) and Pete Baldwin (149), and sophs Justin LaValle (141) and Tristan Warner (165) have won at least 14 matches this season.

The Monarchs' youth and inexperience are products of a roster purge three years ago that, in turn, led to a recruiting scramble in the past couple of years. Last season, the Monarchs sank to 7-12-1 in dual meets, a third-place finish at the CAA meet and a tie for 37th at the NCAA championships — well off Martin's goals for the program.

"We got caught in a situation where we had some recruits that were affecting other recruits," Martin said, "so we basically had to houseclean for the future. Last year we experienced a pretty miserable season because of it, but right now the future's pretty bright. And we're making progress every day. It's probably the first time since I've been here that we've been able to make progress on a daily basis."

Edwards embodies the progress. He was ranked in the top 10 early in the season and is now in the top 20 with an 8-4 record. An exceptionally gifted wrestler, his issues were conditioning — more on that in a moment — and mental preparation at Arizona State.

"I want to say I'm working 10 times harder, but I can't even put a number on it," Edwards said. "I'm working so much harder. Even the days I don't feel like training that hard, Steve makes me train that hard. It's 110 percent every day, day in and day out."

Said Martin: "If he goes hard for seven minutes, he can beat anybody in the country. If he doesn't, he can be beaten by anybody in the country. So our goal with him is to go hard for seven minutes, and we try to simulate that every day in practice."

Edwards' situation is complicated by sickle cell trait, a less serious form of sickle cell disease that affects approximately three million Americans, according to the Center for Disease Control. The condition can cause pain, fatigue and decreased blood flow, as curved, sickle-shaped red blood cells limit oxygen within the bloodstream.

"I'll hit a spot and it's like a light switch turning off," Edwards said. "Wrestling's not like football, where you can take a timeout and go to the sideline."

He had experienced occasional bouts of fatigue growing up, but wasn't diagnosed with the condition until he was a freshman at Arizona State. He can train and compete without issue as long as he follows a strict diet, gets sufficient rest and avoids colds and minor sickness.

Martin has familiarized himself with the condition, so that he and the training staff can monitor Edwards.

Edwards, too, has become more attuned to taking care of himself, on and off the mat. He left Arizona State after he was suspended from the wrestling team. He and a teammate were caught on video last May punching a man during the school's annual "Undie Run," a charity event in which students run through campus in their underwear.

Edwards claimed that he was coming to a smaller teammate's defense when some in the crowd became rowdy. He isn't certain if he would have been reinstated, but said that he was better off with a change of scenery for competitive and academic reasons.

Martin, who recruited Edwards heavily in high school, pursued him again.

"We knew he's a good kid," Martin said. "Kids make mistakes and they need second chances. We knew what his character was like. There wasn't any hesitation whatsoever, as far as that."

Said Edwards: "I feel like I've definitely grown up a lot. Maybe from leaving, different settings, being a senior. I'm not in the transition phase of being a young college student that just wants to go out and have a bunch of fun. I've got a semester left, then I'm an adult. I've got to go out and get a job. I've got to set an alarm clock. I'm kind of past all the going out to parties, drinking and all that stuff."

Martin said that Edwards has been a good role model for a team that he's convinced can be very good by the end of the season.

"We might not have shown it in December in our competition," he said, "but we're getting better. I can see it. We're taking positive steps every day. I think we can get a lot of guys qualified for nationals. We have plenty of dual-meet matches to get it done in January and February."

Virginia Duals

WHEN: Friday-Saturday.

WHERE: Hampton Coliseum.

SCHEDULE: Multiple college and high school brackets. For complete schedule, visit virginiduals.org